Fly from London to Paris Under Water

With high speed trains, it’s easy to travel faster than a plane between London and Paris. Eurostar ran its first test train from Paris Gare du Nord via a new route in England to its new terminal at Saint Pancras, adjacent to King’s Cross. It traveled at 300 km/h, 50% faster than Britain’s fastest domestic rail lines. The new route starts at the end of the Chunnel, an under-water rail tunnel that connects England to continental Europe, goes through Ashford, Kent, under the river Thames, ends at Saint Pancras terminal. The new alignment of the Eurostar, which avoids local tracks, will cut 20 minutes off the original travel time of 2 hours 35 minutes. Service to Waterloo will cease on 13 November. The newly restored station in northern London at Saint Pancras will officially open the following day. Unlike flying, high speed trains drop off passengers at a central location, with no expensive taxi fares from airports or long advance check-in requirements. Train riders are advised to show up only 30 minutes in advance. There is no baggage claim, so once arriving in Paris, passengers slip off the train and then onto the Métro platform for lines serving almost anywhere in Paris. In London, Saint Pancras has convenient access to six Tube lines and several other National Rail services. A trip on the plane would take up to an hour of travel to the airport, an hour in advance check-in, 40 minutes of flight, 20 minutes at the baggage claim, and up to another hour to the center of Paris or London, which, in total, equals three to four hours of travel time. However, the cost of a Eurostar train ticket is slightly higher than the cheapest plane flight. Eurostar’s cheapest round trip fare is £59 and requires a Saturday night stay over. The low-cost airline, Easyjet, has London to Paris flights for £42 (of which £34 is taxes) round trip with no blackouts or date restrictions. The competition between low cost airlines and trains has become so fierce that United Airlines’ partner BMI British Midland dropped all service to Paris. Eurostar offers twenty trains to France each day and also has service to Lille, Calais, and Brussels.